Liebestraum no.3 - LIszt

[shoremusic]

I would love to hear back from anyone who is learning or has already learned Liebestraum no.3.
How long did it take to learn? How did you break it down? I can imagine some people are put off the cadenzas when looking at it for the first time.
Not after any advice because I'm already about halfway through the piece, but I'm just interested to hear your experiences with the piece.
Thanks!

[perprocrastinate]

The third Liebestraume taught me the importance of tone quality, voicing, and phrasing. I never thought much, in terms of difficulty, of the slow sections, until I truly understood my struggle with really creating music. The main melody of the piece is conservative, and it was a challenge to make it sound interesting. The challenge got more difficult as the piece progressed with structural variations, but reusing the same melody. It was a challenge in not letting the melody go stale.

Fortunately, I found that Liszt's masterful incorporation of technical devices allowed for a flexibility in interpretation.

As for frustrations, there were times I wanted to saw my piano in half, in response to my inability to make accurate leaps in the second section. Oh, and that goddamned cadenza in double thirds..

[rachsoul]

I pretty much just took it page by page, although its so beautiful that it was almost difficult to not want to play through the whole piece every time.  I did start the second quasi cadenza at the same time that I started the piece to make sure it was up to speed by the time I got there.  It was a pain but once the muscle memory kicked in everything fell into place.  By the time I finished and performed it I had probably spent about five months to get it just right.

[shoremusic]

Thanks for the comments. I have been thinking about all the things you've covered.
I also have the habit of replaying the bits I already know as it's so beautiful.
The fortunate thing about knowing the piece so well is I'm automatically forced to think about tone quality and voicing when learning it. I hope I can do Liszt proud.

[bencollisonmusic]

Hello,

I think it takes about 3 months give or take to learn a piece like Liebestraum no. 2. I had worked on this piece for two months before bringing it to the Crescendo International Piano Competition (first place) and the American Prodigee International Piano Competition (honorable mention). Later on January 25th and Feb 4th of 2014 I performed the Liebestraum at Carnegie Hall as prizes for the competitions.

For me I got really involved in this piece (also preparing for competitions pushed me too). It really comes down for any piece of work, how much involved you can get with the piece. Even now I still work on it to improve my performance of that piece. I'm gonna give you a link to my youtube recording I had of it when I had to audition for the competition. It has improved so much since then.

Did you know that the Liebestraum is based from a German Poem? Find that poem and read it (you can translate it in english). I think knowing the story behind the piece will help you find how to phrase certain sections.

For both "runs" find the pattern in each octave (they are the same) and have your fingers memorize them.
The beginning and end are all about musicality, work hard on them.
The middle part with the leaps. The notes outline chords so block the chords so that your hands know were to go and position after each jump.

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.

-Benjamin Collison